2011.05.20
Concert announcement: Alison Krauss & Union Station feat. Jerry Douglas coming to Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre on July 21
Alison Krauss, T Bone Burnett and Robert Plant perform on June 1, 2008 at Roanoke Civic Center | File photo
I just walked up to the doors of the Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre, where James Taylor is playing tonight, and was greeted with flyers announcing that Alison Krauss & Union Station feat. Jerry Douglas are playing the RPAT on July 21.
Krauss was last here in 2008, when she and Robert Plant came to the civic center behind their million-selling, Grammy-winning disc “Raising Sand.”
She and Plant gave up on making a follow-up. Plant made his “Band of Joy” album, and Krauss returned to Union Station to make their latest bluegrass/Americana hit, “Paper Airplanes.”
Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. June 3. We’ll post ticket price info as soon as we receive it — probably tomorrow, when the civic center makes the official announcement.
UPDATED at 12:45 p.m. May 23. 2011: Tickets are $49.50, $59.50 at the Roanoke Civic Center box office, HomeTownBankTix.com and (877) 482-8496.
I love Alison Krauss. I saw her in Salem when she had Tony Rice traveling with the band. A voice as pure and lovely as she is, and Jerry Douglas is worth the price of admission by himself…
Comment by abdnva — May 21, 2011 @ 9:51 pm
I have never missed an Alison Krauss concert since she performed for free at the Salem Fair in the ’90′s. I am always on the front row. Like Brad Paisley said if I get to heaven and the angels don’t sound like Alison I will be disappointed. It is pure music. No big prodution just clear sweet music. Can’t wait!!
Comment by Tena — May 22, 2011 @ 8:57 pm
abdnva: Was that the bluegrass festival they has a couple of times at the baseball park?
Tena: Paisley said it well!
Comment by Tad Dickens — May 23, 2011 @ 11:16 am
I’ve seen AKUS several times in several different venues. I remember Alison playing Salem Fair, back when it was worth going to, but I don’t remember the concert ever being “free”. She played the fair twice. I do remember paying bucks for a 30 minute set, that was ridiculous and I always wondered if she thought it was a 2 set show. She was much younger then and much more bluegrass than country. Now, its top dollar and from what I’ve seen, its worth it. But if you don’t know who Jerry Douglas is and don’t know what a “dobro” is, then don’t ruin it for everyone else by loudly talking to your neighbor about dinner at the Cracker Barrel while he’s playing an amazing, blistering solo as only “Flux” can do. I wonder if Alison is still single and would like a tour of our Mill Mountain Star? =)
Comment by Lestr Flatt for President — May 23, 2011 @ 3:09 pm
The time that Alison had Tony Rice as a featured guest was at the Salem Civic Center. I’ll admit I didn’t know who he was at the time, and was only going for the ability to see her up close and enjoy great music. When it came time for the band to take a break, they all walked off the stage except for Tony Rice. He then played a 20 minute version of Shenandoah. The rest of the band filtered back up on stage, and he never left the whole time.
Alison is still single (as in divorced and unattached), and that means I can still hold out hope! Between her and the Mega Millions, I’d take the angel every time!
Comment by abdnva — May 24, 2011 @ 7:07 pm
Yes, abdnva, thanks for reminding me. Ralph Berrier wrote a great review of that show. Here it is, courtesy of The Roanoke Times wayback machine:
3 / 22 – Saturday, May 19, 2007
Edition: METRO
Section: EXTRA
Page: 1
Source: By Ralph Berrier Jr. ralph.berrier@roanoke.com 981-3338
Type: CONCERT REVIEW
KRAUSS GIVES BLUEGRASS HERO HIS VOICE BACK
Tony Rice spoke volumes through his music. He only needed help from Alison Krauss and Union Station to articulate his musical vision.
Before a crowd of more than 4,000 at the Salem Civic Center, the bluegrass megastarlet yielded center stage to Rice’s songs and playing, forgoing her own platinum-selling work to pay tribute to one of her heroes.
“Tony’s music is my most favorite music ever recorded,” Krauss said Friday night. “To play the tunes he’s made such a mark on is an honor.”
Rice rose to fame with such seminal groups as J.D. Crowe and the New South and the David Grisman Quintet, as his acoustic guitar-playing incorporated jazz and swing styles and influenced every lead player who followed. He was a wonderful singer once, before unspecified vocal problems reduced his baritone to a craggy warble. He sounds and even looks a bit like Clint Eastwood these days.
Although the show wasn’t the trademark seamless affair we’ve come to expect from AK and US — a shaky harmony here, an arrangement not as tight as white on Rice there — the bumpy road traveled was worth the risks. Dan Tyminski handled a sizable chunk of the vocal chores, and his tenor vocals were a high point, literally, of the night.
The show’s first four songs covered the breadth of Rice’s career. Krauss opened with “Shadows,” one of the great songs from Rice’s 1996 album, “Tony Rice Sings Gordon Lightfoot.”
Tyminski, the former Franklin Countian who claimed that Tony Rice changed his life, took a stab at the Fats Domino classic “I’m Walkin,’ ” which Rice sang on the influential “J.D. Crowe and the New South” in 1975. “Sawin’ on the Strings” was from Rice’s work with his brothers Larry and Wyatt and allowed Krauss to let those fiddling fingers fly. Then Krauss sang perhaps Rice’s best-known Lightfoot cover, “Early Morning Rain.”
Even though he no longer sings, Rice was deserving of the attention and applause his exemplary guitar work received. Every run, every solo he played, even though he has picked them a million times, earned loud ovations.
For the most part, the crowd was into the dynamic musical teamwork, seeming to know Rice’s work. Rice and dobro master Jerry Douglas, another J.D. Crowe alumnus, got into some spacegrassy stuff with their elongated take on “Summertime.”
Krauss, the seriously gifted musician who can be quite the goofball onstage when introducing songs or bandmates (she called the dignified banjoist Ron Block the group’s “sexy librarian”), said that when she considered recording new songs as a younger musician, she often asked herself, “Would Tony ever do this song? Would Tony like this song?”
She thought he would have liked “Can I Touch You For Awhile,” which was the only song they played from one of her records. Mostly, the material stuck to Rice’s best-known vocal performances.
At his prime, his warm baritone was a recognizable bluegrass voice, but he seemed content as Tyminski and Krauss handled Norman Blake’s “Ginseng Sullivan” and Tyminski kicked up the tempo on old favorites “Down the Road” and “Church Street Blues,” another Blake song.
Bluesy workouts on “Any Old Time” and the Jimmy Martin classic “Freeborn Man” were good ol’ foot-stompers that deserved an encore. The tear-jerking “Summer Wages” was the perfect choice. The night ended with another classic, Bill Monroe’s “I’m On My Way Back to the Old Home,” which Rice recorded for 1980′s “The Bluegrass Album.”
The evening was loose and fun. Just before Krauss sang Lightfoot’s “Song for a Winter’s Night,” Rice introduced the number by saying it was his favorite Lightfoot song sung by his “favorite person to sing it.”
“Thanks, Tony,” Tyminski chimed in.
Comment by Tad Dickens — May 27, 2011 @ 12:10 pm